Student Services stamps deter students

We have all been there. Standing in line at 55th, walking to class, or skipping down the hall of your dorm when the eye catching potential event that is emblazoned on the wall via a shiny new poster is indubitably marred by the inky words declaring: “Student Services Approved.”

Students and faculty alike call out the injustices afflicting their eyeballs everyday on Dordt’s campus.

“Your enjoyment of the beautiful coffee swirl on the fruited plain poster outside the art department simply cannot help but stop when your eyes are met with that ominous black smudge,” independent study major Garfield Verwolf said. “And don’t get me started on that red ink on Brahm’s forehead.”

Without descrying the stamp infringement, husband of Dordt’s vice president for administration Andy Schuttinga still supports the awkward and crooked lack of care taken by stampers.

“Students on campus have to learn that life can be awkward and crooked sometimes,” Schuttinga said.

“I can understand the difficulty inherent in adding ink to a fully formed piece of communication between designer and campus,” senior Austin Van Wyhe said. “But they could at least send an art major in there to do the stamping for them.”

The go-to color in the student services stamp arsenal has always been black, but a less common alternative is red. Red has the disadvantage of being easily seen against darker backgrounds, so poster designers can’t escape the smudge with a completely black background.

“I appreciate that they acknowledge the need to accommodate different colored posters,” social work major, Mark Tiemersma said. “But more colors are necessary. We need at least an optimum 16 color palette and adding fuchsia and puce to that wouldn’t hurt.”

The concrete canoe presentation poster was cleverly designed to be both red and black to obscure any hint of stamp, but two-inch bit of yellow flame accent was enough. Now the poster is ruined and its hope of being taken seriously by random passersby is tainted.

A study and report by Dordt’s Real World Statistical Analyses and Probability Predictions club compares unaesthetically stamped posters with their pleasant to look at counterparts with respect to the number of attendees at the event. The ugly stamp job cut attendance down by 7%.

The Zircon could not confirm this result, however. Dordt’s Real World Statistical Analyses and Probability Predictions club or DRWSAPP was planning on posting its data and statistical equations, but the poster was unable to get a stamp of approval.